FUNdraising

If you’re like me, the thought of asking people to give you money creates pretty much the same feeling in your stomach as a decisive kick in the balls. If you’re a girl, I’m told the feeling is similar to severe menstral cramps. Like someone took your stomach and squeezed it like a wet sponge. My, oh my, isn’t this a graphic blog post? So, how do we make crowdsourced fundraising a less stomach churning experience? We here at PoPS are basically trying to make it fun.

Starting with our Indiegogo video. This is my fourth time making a fundraising video. The first couple were just me sitting in the office like in updates, like this:

That was for the episode 6 fundraiser. Simple, heartfelt, but pretty low effort. If someone hasn’t seen the updates there’s not a lot for someone to connect with there. One shot, not much happening. Just a bunch of talkedy talk.

By the episode 7 fundraiser I tried to up our game by doing two videos. The first one was really thought out and took the majority of a Saturday for Eliza and me to orchestrate:

I really liked that one. I thought if we did a second video during the campaign, it would help keep people motivated. So I did, but I didn’t have as much time to devote to it and it replaced the original one. In the end I don’t think it did much to inspire further participation.

The episode 8 fundraiser went live on Sunday. This time, Lize and I spent another full day on the campaign video and we used the 5D and the GoPro to make it more visually satisfying. I also made the decision to up the antics to try and make it the whole thing more fun and run the show’s sizzle reel at the end so that our regular audience didn’t have to sit through it again if they didn’t want to. I think it’s the best we’ve done so far.

This time we also added new prizes and every few days I’m going to remind my subscribers what’s going on with a single shot video checking in on the campaign like this:

Hopefully, it’ll make everyone feel more involved in the campaign and keep everyone spreading it around. We’re also considering doing a raffle option. Anyone donating at the 20 dollar level will get entered into a drawing and we’ll randomly select someone to get the $500 perk. Things like this might keep it fun and help us stay a part of the conversation. Only a few weeks until the campaign is over. Here’s a link to the Indiegogo page for episode 8: